


Down The Long Corridors Of Air

by Thistlerose



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-17
Updated: 2010-06-17
Packaged: 2017-10-10 04:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A circle has no end.  Spock and McCoy over the years.  (Spoilers for the series and the first six films.  All character deaths occur in canon.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down The Long Corridors Of Air

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Archon_mentha and Ayaerhis for beta reading.

It began – as such things do – on an ice planet, in a cave, with a single blanket to share between them. "How do we get ourselves into these situations?" McCoy asked.

Spock – unaware that the question had been rhetorical, thinking instead that the doctor was experiencing the disorientation that often accompanies prolonged exposure to the cold – began to recount, in precise detail, the actions that had led to their separation from the away team. He was just getting to the part where the natives of this frozen world had briefly taken them prisoner and confiscated their phasers and communicators, when McCoy rolled his eyes and said, "I didn't mean… Never mind."

"In any case," Spock said after an uncertain beat or two, "I believe that you should take the blanket."

"You take it," McCoy said, pushing it across the cave's rock-strewn floor. "I'm fine."

That was patently untrue, Spock observed. The doctor was clutching his limbs tightly against his body and shivering. Spock pushed the blanket back toward him. "You take it, Doctor. Vulcans are better evolved than humans to withstand extreme temperatures."

"Why," said McCoy, his teeth chattering, "am I not surprised?"

Since he made no move to retrieve the blanket, Spock rose and picked it up himself. He moved to drape it over the doctor's shoulders. To his surprise, McCoy flinched away from him. Spock frowned. Then he recalled another symptom of hypothermia: the victim's inability to recognize his own peril.

Again Spock reached out, with his bare hand this time, to feel the doctor's pulse. Once again, McCoy jerked away from him.

Most peculiar.

"Don't," McCoy muttered, eyeing him with what Spock took to be wariness. "I just— Don't touch me. Just give me the thing." He grabbed the blanket from Spock's hand, swung it about his shoulders like a cape, and hunkered down.

Spock stood over him for a few moments, one eyebrow raised. Then he shrugged. He could waste precious time attempting to analyze McCoy's behavior, or he could put his mind to more useful pursuits, such as using what remained of their equipment to create a signal of some sort, which would alert the _Enterprise_ and/or the rest of the away team to their position.

He set to work.

After a time, however, two things became obvious to Spock. The first was that most of their equipment would not help him in his endeavor. The second was that Doctor McCoy was in a great deal of discomfort, due, no doubt, to the cold, which had intensified as night fell.

Spock watched him as he huddled on the cave floor, shivering violently. The blanket, Spock thought, was not warm enough. Without pausing to think, he lowered his instruments, walked over to where McCoy lay, dropped down beside him, and gathered him into his arms.

McCoy protested feebly. "Don't," he insisted, his voice a painful-sounding rasp. "Don't." But even under normal circumstances, he hadn't the strength to push Spock away.

"Do not be stubborn, Doctor," Spock said.

"Hnh," McCoy snuffled against his shoulder. "Might as well tell tribbles to stop breeding."

"Perhaps. But even you must admit that preserving body heat is imperative, and this happens to be the most logical means of achieving that end."

"Not arguing with you, Spock. Just… Don't know if you can help it, but try not to look into my mind. Not too deeply, anyway. You wouldn't like it."

Spock would have quipped that he never liked what he saw in McCoy's mind, but he sensed that he was in earnest. Spock frowned. Despite himself, he was somewhat intrigued. "At this proximity, it is not voluntary on my part. Nonetheless, your thoughts are your own, and I shall ignore—"

"Don't want you to ignore," McCoy muttered. "Don't want you to _know_…"

His voice was weakening, a fact Spock ascribed to simple fatigue, rather than his succumbing to the extreme cold. He still trembled, but nowhere near as violently, and his breaths, like his heartbeat, were steady, natural. Spock continued to hold him, and to think, but not about signaling the _Enterprise_.

Leonard McCoy was quite thin. Not emaciated, just… very slight of build. It was a simple observation, one Spock had made before, without any deep significance. It was a physical characteristic, nothing more. Or should be. Now, lying on the cave's cold floor, in a darkness lessened only by a flashlight's thin beam and the dimly glowing lichens that clung to the rough walls, Spock found himself troubled by the very frailty of the man in his arms. His shoulder blades jutted sharply against the fabric of his uniform and, as Spock moved his hand down the doctor's back, he felt every small knob of bone.

Realizing what he was doing, Spock stilled his hand. He waited, but McCoy only mumbled sleepily against his neck.

Spock knew he shouldn't do it, that it was a violation of trust, but he was far too curious, both about the doctor's words and his own involuntary actions. Raising himself on one elbow, he moved one hand very gently over McCoy's face, smoothing the hair back from his brow. It was just a brushing of skin, not even close to a meld, but beneath the usual clamor of emotions that was always right at the surface of Leonard McCoy's mind, he sensed something new.

Spock probed just a little deeper, and was jolted – as if by electricity.

McCoy opened his eyes and looked up at him dully and without accusation. "Told you not to look."

"Forgive me. I—" But there were no excuses.

"Well, you can forget about it. Write it off as completely illogical." Now there was a bitter note, and Spock found that it troubled him as much as McCoy's thinness and the way he'd shivered earlier.

"It _is_ completely illogical," Spock allowed, touching McCoy's face again. His own actions puzzled him, as would his next words: "But it does not necessarily follow that it is wrong. Or unrequited." Vulcans were not compelled to voice the truth, only to avoid speaking untruths. To the end of his days, Spock would wonder why he said it. Curiosity was a factor, surely, but not the only one.

The blue eyes widened. Something struggled in them, some drowning spark of hope. "You can't mean to say that _I_ make you feel… something." His lips quirked. "Apart from the usual aggravation."

"Be sensible, Doctor," Spock admonished. "I _am_ Vulcan. But it seems I too prefer your company to that of almost every other intelligent being – and I use the term loosely – of my acquaintance. It is… most curious."

"I get under your skin."

Spock was familiar with the idiom. "In a manner similar to a virus."

McCoy laughed. Spock felt his hand uncurl against his chest, then slide downward to rest over his heart. Fascinated, he leaned into the touch.

Their first kiss was hesitant, brief, a mutual testing of a bond that neither expected to hold up against years of rivalry and antagonism.

The second kiss was better. It was rather more exploratory, and lasted far longer. McCoy hooked an arm around Spock's shoulders and held him down. The blanket fell away, but that was all right because by then they were generating enough heat on their own.

Only Spock's acute hearing saved them from being interrupted by the arrival of Kirk, Chekov, and the rest of the away team.

*

It continued discreetly. By unspoken accord, they stepped up their public bickering. Jim gave them the occasional bemused look, but if he suspected that the increased heat of their debates hid anything at all, he spoke not a word. McCoy did wonder once when, toward the end of their five-year mission, Jim asked him if he'd be returning to Natira, and seemed only mildly surprised by the lack of enthusiasm that question met.

"Bones, I thought you loved her. You _married_ her, however briefly."

"I had xenopolycythemia, Jim. I thought I had a year to live. A man'll do crazy things when time's running out." He shot a glance at Spock, who raised his eyebrows, then appeared to become quite busy with his computer.

McCoy did feel a pang when he thought about Natira. He _had_ cared for her, and it pained him to think that she might still be waiting for him. There were times when he thought he should contact her, but that would mean letting another person in on his secret, and he wasn't prepared to do that. If he couldn't tell Jim, he couldn't tell anyone else.

He wasn't sure why he couldn't tell Jim. Jealousy, maybe, though he liked to think he was above that, at least where his friends were concerned. Or maybe it was because then he would have had to give a name to this thing he had with Spock. And he wasn't ready for that.

"I suppose you're right," Jim was saying. "Still…" And here his tone became rather wistful. "We've encountered so many beautiful women over the course of these five years. I would've liked to see at least one of my closest friends happily in love. A shame. She _was_ beautiful, Bones. And strong. A man could do worse."

McCoy clasped his hands behind his back and swayed back and forth on the balls of his heels. "Oh," he said innocently, "I have." He didn't dare look at Spock then. He had to imagine his rolled eyes.

*

Not that there was much for them to hide, from Jim or anyone else. Theirs was not a particularly passionate affair. They didn't throw each other against the bulkheads or grope in the turbolifts. There were no kisses outside the transporter room right before one or the other beamed down to a new and potentially hostile planet. It wasn't like that.

Which was not to say it wasn't physical. It definitely was, but that aspect was secondary. First and foremost, there was an understanding between them, not just an armistice, but a disarmament.

Disarmed. That's what he was, McCoy thought. Locks undone, gates thrown wide. Not that he'd ever had many barriers against Spock. It was just that in the past, the other man (half-man? being?) had assumed they existed, or at least acted as if they did.

Oddly enough, it made him think about the times he'd slept outside as a boy. On particularly hot summer nights, he'd grab a sleeping bag, a pillow, and a flashlight, leave a quick note for his parents, and then head out. Back then, his parents had owned a few acres in rural Georgia. They'd had air conditioning, but he'd always preferred a breeze, even if it wasn't as strong. He'd lay his sleeping bag down in the cool grass, flop onto it, and then just lie there on his back, gazing up at the stars. Most times, he only wore his pajama bottoms, and even as a boy, he'd been semi-aware of and enjoyed the sensuality of it all: bare skin, slow breeze, crickets and fireflies in the grass around him, and the light of so many stars. He'd felt wholly exposed, wholly _known_ somehow, and wholly at peace with the universe. This was well before he'd realized that there were about as many ways for a man to die in space as there were stars.

Being with Spock was like that. Not the fear – though maybe that was somewhere in the back of his mind – but the openness, the serenity. It was there and it was _weird_, especially when they argued – or when, with most of the rest of the ship asleep around them, they actually did fuck each other half-senseless.

Which didn't happen frequently. Much more often, they would limit themselves to a brush of fingertips, one hand laid gently over another. Sometimes, when McCoy found Spock alone – and he was sure they would not be disturbed – he'd come up behind him, wrap his arms around his chest, and rest his chin against a narrow shoulder.

They never said the words. There never seemed to be a need. _You know what I mean,_ McCoy would think. _You know what I feel._ It was true, and even if he couldn't read Spock's thoughts – McCoy could stand to have his thoughts skimmed, but not probed, and so they never melded – the fact that Spock allowed the whole thing to go on… was enough.

Or so McCoy told himself.

*

It ended – or should have ended – not with an argument, but an agreement. One night – or what counted for night aboard a starship – very close to the end of their mission, McCoy said sleepily to Spock, "Should come with me to Georgia. After all this is over. Jus' fer a bit. Like to show you around the old place."

They were tangled in McCoy's bed and the lights were dimmed. Spock ran a hand through the damp brown hair, felt the contented sigh slide across his own skin. Knowing that the other man would be asleep in moments and might, by morning, have forgotten the invitation altogether, Spock said, "You are not of the opinion that I would be singularly out of place in Georgia? You were once."

"Times change," McCoy mumbled. "Anyway, y'er… practic'ly human now, Spock." Three slow heartbeats later, he was asleep.

_Yes,_ Spock thought. And all at once he knew that he could not remain in this bed any more than he could accompany McCoy to Georgia. Because he was right, even if he'd meant it teasingly: Spock was giving in, more and more, to his human side. The very fact that he could look back on the weeks he'd spent with the doctor and think, _Except for when I was under the influence of alien pollen, this is the closest I have come to happiness_, proved it.

Certainly it was not a bad thing to be human. Inconvenient, yes, when pure logic made exploration and evaluation of the universe so much easier. But not a bad thing.

It was not, however, what he wanted. It was not what he had chosen for himself when he left Vulcan for Starfleet, years ago. He was perfectly aware that choices were sometimes retracted, that few things were truly permanent, at least where living creatures – Vulcan, human, or otherwise – were concerned. But he did not want to retract his choice. He did not see it as a rejection of his human half so much as an embracing of Surak's teachings, his guiding principles. It was the path he wanted, a path that McCoy, with his strong passions and his reliance on instinct and emotions, could not walk with him.

_McCoy,_ he thought, touching him again. Not for the first time, it struck Spock as strange that, after all their intimacies, he should still think of the man by his surname. Or his professional title. _Leonard_, he thought, and, with a rare flash of amusement, _Bones_. But, no, Bones was Jim's name for him, and he didn't think of himself, even in the privacy of his own mind – not so private lately – as Leonard. Even as he recognized the desire as human, Spock wished he'd come up with something all his own. Though perhaps, he reflected a moment later, it was good that he had not. Humans claimed things by naming them. Except for their children, Vulcans did not.

Spock touched McCoy a third time, and felt his mind. He was deeply asleep and dreaming quite vividly, about Spanish moss and tart peaches, a field of grass shining like the sea under a flood of starlight. A pleasant dream, one that Spock was loath to disturb.

So he took the utmost care in extricating himself from the warm, limp body. They rarely spent an entire night together, but one always woke the other with a kiss or a whisper, just before leaving. Spock rose without jouncing the bed, dressed quickly, and walked out without a word or a backward glance.

*

McCoy's confusion the next day was manifest in every word he uttered in Spock's hearing, and in every glance he shot at him. When Jim took notice – "Bones, I realize you get up on the wrong side of the bed every day, but this morning I think you fell off the wrong side of a top bunk and hit the wrong side of the bottom bunk on the way down." – Spock drew the doctor away from the bridge, into an empty meeting room, and shut the door.

Turning, he said simply, "It cannot continue," and waited for the explosion.

Somewhat to his surprise, McCoy mastered himself before a single vitriolic word could escape his lips. Spock _felt_ the hurt and then the animosity – it seemed to pulse right off him in scorching waves – but all he said was, "And I don't get a say in any of this."

"There is nothing to discuss. Your first assessment was correct: it was completely illogical."

"I meant my own feelings, not—" Apparently finding himself at a loss – they'd never given a name to what they had – McCoy waved his hand in the empty air between them. "But you started it." He jabbed a finger at Spock.

"Indeed. It is fitting, therefore, that I end it."

"There's nothing fitting about it. My emotions may be illogical, but so's ignoring them. Damnit, Spock—"

"Do not think that this is easy for me," Spock interrupted in a gentle tone. "Do not believe that I do not value our… time together, or that I do not have regrets."

"Isn't regret an emotion?" McCoy spat.

Spock thought for a moment. "I never wished to see you hurt," he said at length, "and yet I know that that is precisely what I have done." He saw the hope flare up in McCoy's eyes, and knew what he had to do. Drawing himself up straight, clasping his hands behind his back, he continued with perfect detachment, "It was an interesting experience, even fascinating at times. As an experiment, I could not describe it as wholly unsuccessful. Nevertheless, I have reached the conclusion that you and I are of separate worlds in nearly every way possible, and that anything deeper than friendship would be inadvisable. Upon the completion of our mission, you should return to Earth – or Natira, if you have not severed ties with her completely. I shall journey to the planet of my father's people, where, pending the approval of the Vulcan High Council, I shall complete the ritual of _Kolinahr_, whereby all vestigial emotions will be purged. This is not—" He paused because he could not lie. "It is my _hope_ that you will not look upon this decision as a reflection on our time together."

He watched McCoy flinch at the words, felt the spirit in him twist like a wounded animal and come about with hackles raised, teeth bared. "The hell it's not," he snapped. His nostrils flared. Every line of him writhed with anger. "You can play with words all you like, Spock. It's still a lie. This has everything to do with me and your – your goddamn _fear_ of emotions. I said once before that you were afraid to really live. I was right. Damn it all to hell, I was right and I knew it, and I still let you in. You know what I think happened? You got a taste of _life_, and you liked it, and the fact that you liked it scared you so bad that you're running back home to daddy, who'll make the nasty emotions go away. Tell me I'm wrong." He didn't wait for a response. "You're a coward. You'd rather give up one world than try to live in two."

"You cannot possibly understand, Doctor," Spock said quietly, when it seemed he'd finally run out of breath. "You would tell me, perhaps, that you are an Earthman, living and working in an environment to which you are neither native nor suited physically. In that sense, you _are_ of two worlds – the Earth and space. But our situations are not analogous. You cannot understand."

"I might," McCoy began, "if you'd _try_—"

"I have been trying."

"The hell you have!"

"I have," Spock said again. "I pretended nothing, but presented you with both sides of my nature, and you – embraced the one you preferred, the one with which you were more comfortable. And perhaps there is nothing wrong with that. Indeed, there are aspects of your nature that I chose to ignore. I can do so no longer. You wish for me to be something that I am not."

"What, a creature with a soul?"

Spock gave him a very long, patient look. "Vulcans have souls, Doctor. Though we call them something else."

"What about half-Vulcans? A mongrel's still a mongrel, no matter which side he favors."

That the words cut deeply was only further proof that he had chosen correctly, Spock thought.

"I'm sorry," McCoy said at once, his voice rough, his cheeks reddened. "I shouldn't've put it like that. Didn't mean to compare you to—"

"It is quite all right," Spock cut in blandly. "As I said, there are aspects of your nature that I chose to ignore. What should never have begun is now ended. Perhaps it would be best if you went down to sickbay and stayed there for the remainder of your shift. I shall return to the bridge. If your services are required, I or the captain—"

"What exactly _are_ you going to tell Jim?"

"I shall simply tell the captain that we argued. If he inquires further—"

"Would you lie to _him_?" McCoy muttered, averting his gaze.

"Vulcans do not lie. I shall inform him that we had a difference of… philosophies, which is now resolved." He paused. Keeping the uncertainty from his tone took some effort, but he succeeded: "We are still friends. That has not changed." McCoy's jaw tensed and his lashes twitched, but he said nothing. Spock turned and started for the door.

McCoy stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "_Philosophy_, Spock?" Like a wound that had been stanched but not yet healed, his voice was at once raw and tender. "There're more things on heaven and earth than're dreamt of in your philosophy."

"_Hamlet_," said Spock automatically, and looked back at him, eyebrow raised. Doctor McCoy was highly educated and familiar with the classics of Earth literature, but quoting passages was not his wont. "Act One, Scene Five. It is not applicable."

"Isn't it?" McCoy pulled him into a kiss that, for all its urgency, Spock could have broken easily, had that been his desire. But because he knew it to be the last one and because he knew that humans required official goodbyes, he made no attempt to pull away, but allowed himself to remain suspended between two worlds for a few moments longer. Something tightened in his chest, some emotion he did not pause to identify because he was too busy curling his tongue against McCoy's, running his hands over his face and body, absorbing his pain, his regret – and that other emotion, which Spock had first detected while huddling in a cave on an ice planet now many light-years distant.

It did not matter, Spock reasoned, what he brought back with him to Vulcan. All of it would be expunged.

*

Really, that should have been the end of it. For a long time, McCoy believed that it was. After the _Enterprise_ returned to drydock, he left Starfleet and went to work at a private practice in Savannah, where his daughter Joanna was a nurse. In the years that followed, he dug his heels deep into Georgia's red earth. He stubbornly ignored all of Starfleet's offers, flattering and enticing as some of them were; he started going gray with a minimum of fuss and approached fifty with what Jim – with whom he stayed in touch – laughingly called a sort of grim relish; he grew a beard, which all his friends hated, which was mostly why he kept it; he became a grandfather and spent many an evening on the front porch swing, watching the sun set and listening to the crickets, a mint julep in one hand and a burbling infant in the other. He did not contact Natira, though he thought about her sometimes, particularly late at night, when he was almost always alone.

He tried not to think about Spock, whom he assumed had returned to Vulcan as planned, and was hard at work on his studies or rituals or whatever the hell achieving _Kolinahr_ entailed. McCoy could have looked it up, but decided he didn't want to know.

He stopped being bitter after only a few months. Spock had been right, he decided; they didn't belong in each other's worlds and trying to force it would have been foolish. They'd have made each other miserable. Though the idea of purging one's emotions chilled McCoy – personally, he'd have preferred to lose a limb or two – he told himself that it was what Spock wanted, that it was his choice. He even tried – for a short while – to be happy for Spock, since he knew that, once the damn ritual was complete, the fool Vulcan wouldn't be _able_ to be happy for himself.

At least, he thought, if they ever met again, they'd still have plenty to argue about. He had to admit he missed the arguments. People found plenty to bicker about in Savannah, but it wasn't the same. They were too much like _him_. They brought only their own stubbornness, their own sheer cussedness. Nothing new. Nothing… alien.

Arguing with Georgians – with humans – had gotten kind of boring, actually.

So maybe that was why he made only a token display of resistance when Admiral James T. Kirk pulled some strings and got him re-enlisted in Starfleet and back aboard the _Enterprise_. And maybe it was why, despite everything, he was genuinely glad to see Spock when he showed up unexpectedly while they were en route to intercept an intruder cloud of some sort. An intruder cloud that had destroyed three Klingon battle cruisers near the Neutral Zone, and turned out to be a three hundred year-old Earth probe gone sentient somehow.

They fell into their old pattern easily enough:

"Spock," he said at one point and with genuine pleasure, "you haven't changed a bit. You're just as warm and sociable as ever."

And he kept on smiling, even after Spock replied: "Nor have you, Doctor, as your continued predilection for irrelevancy demonstrates."

But that was all they fell into for a good long while. McCoy didn't get his hopes up even when he learned that Spock hadn't completed _Kolinahr_ after all – though he'd come damn close. He didn't flatter himself that it had anything to do with him, and he turned out to be right; it was that sentient probe, V'Ger, messing with Spock's mind. Privately, though, and to his shame – he was rather pleased.

*

It could have ended – for good – when Spock died in 2285. Really, in a universe that made even a modicum of sense, it should have.

But Spock's death taught McCoy two things. The first was that yes, Vulcans, did have souls, and it was no fun at all when they took up residence in your head. "Ought to charge you rent," he muttered to himself or to Spock during one of his more lucid moments on the trip back to the Genesis planet. "Would a warning really've killed you? I mean, before the radiation did?"

Lying on his back in his darkened cabin, it was all too easy to imagine Spock seated at the foot of his bed, almost in reach of his fingertips, but not quite. He'd be giving him that _look_, McCoy thought, eyebrow raised, lips curved but not smiling. "You know," he said with a touch of asperity, "for a guy so afraid to live, you're surprisingly reluctant to die."

_All these years, Doctor, and it has never occurred to you that your assessment of me might have been incorrect?_

The words reverberated in his skull as clearly as his own thoughts. More so, perhaps, because they were distinctly words and not mere impressions, spoken in the other man's voice. McCoy clapped his hands to his head, a gesture that did not do one bit of good.

"_No_," he barked.

The second thing he learned was that he wasn't over it. Not at all. Angry as he was, he knew damn well that if it had been _anyone_ else, he'd have been furious. Livid. He'd have been pumping himself full of sedatives just to shut the invading mind up. But even as his grasp on _himself_ became more and more tenuous, and his thoughts and memories became more and more entangled in Spock's, he couldn't quite bring himself to wish Spock gone. Not if it meant he'd be gone for good.

"Always a place for you," he said weakly. "Always welcome. Still, just once, I wish you'd ask."

But he didn't say anything when they got Spock back and restored his soul, his _katra_, whatever it was that had been riding around in McCoy's head, turning his gears for weeks. Well, all right, he said _plenty_, but not about that. It would've been wrong, he decided. If he'd suffered, at least he'd gained more than he'd lost, unlike Jim; Spock's return had cost him not just his ship, but the life of his only son. In light of that, McCoy decided to step back and let Jim be as protective of his best friend as he needed to be.

Spock certainly needed protecting, at least in the beginning. Though he seemed as sardonic as ever, McCoy noticed a weird sort of disconnect between Spock's soul and his memories. He had his memories – or most of them – but he seemed to have lost their meaning. He had facts, but not opinions. It was the oddest case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder McCoy had ever encountered and for all his skill as a surgeon, and for all his love as a friend, he was at a loss. So he maintained his appearance of insouciance, even as he kept a careful eye on Spock. And on Jim as well.

Eventually, thanks mostly to Jim and to time, Spock began to sound and act more like his old self. Still, McCoy didn't say anything.

*

It almost began again – if things that never really end can be said to have new beginnings – eight years later. With an ice planet – well, an ice asteroid this time – naturally.

There was no doubt in McCoy's mind that he and Jim would've been toast if Spock hadn't gotten them off Rura Penthe exactly when he did. And not just because the Klingon guards – who'd enabled their escape just so they'd have a legitimate excuse to bump them off – were about to shoot them. McCoy didn't know about Jim, but he was pretty sure _he'd_ have been safely dead of hypothermia well before the Klingon guard pulled the trigger.

_And I was three months away from retirement,_ he thought in the second before Spock beamed them out of there.

Once he was back on the _Enterprise_, he shucked his filthy prison rags and stood under the shower for a good half hour. It wasn't good old-fashioned water, which was what he craved, but it was hot.

It didn't help.

He emerged, put on his maroon uniform, and got into bed. That hadn't been the plan while he'd been showering or dressing, but suddenly he found the very thought of leaving his cabin, of facing other people crippling. He ought to be checking on Jim, making sure he wasn't still suffering from the bitter cold. But his lungs burned and his joints throbbed painfully. The ship's bright lights hurt his eyes.

_Physician,_ he admonished, _heal thy own damn self._

So he lay in his bed, under a mound of blankets, with the heat turned up and the lights dimmed, until Spock came to get him.

"Doctor," he said, standing in the doorway, "while I understand that recovery requires rest, if war between the Federation and the Klingons is to be prevented, we can waste no time. Your presence is required in sickbay."

McCoy blinked up at him. "… Jim okay?" The words scraped his raw throat.

"The captain is quite well. Mister Scott has made an intriguing discovery, one that I believe will aid us in identifying the individual or individuals who orchestrated the attack on Chancellor Gorkon."

"D'you _really_ need me for that?"

"I should think you would be interested in apprehending the ones responsible for framing you and the captain."

"Oh, I am." McCoy pushed at the heavy bedding. He got it about half-off, but then when he tried to rise, he found he couldn't. His own skin seemed to lie over his muscles and bones like ice over a tree branch or a stream; it held him down, immobilized. "I am," he panted. "One of these years. Spock?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

He lay there silently for a few moments, the breath moving slowly in and out of his lungs. At length he said, "How do we get ourselves into these situations?"

"Is this a rhetorical question?"

"Hell," said McCoy, "I don't know."

The door behind Spock slid closed with a _whoosh_. McCoy felt the bed dip as Spock sat down beside him. He saw the long fingers moving toward his face and flinched against the pillow. Spock paused.

"Don't," said McCoy, just as he'd said it years and worlds and lives ago. "Just – don't."

"I will not look," Spock assured him, his voice gentle as a blanket in the dimness.

"Then why—" He couldn't complete the sentence.

"Because."

That was hardly a _Vulcan_ answer, but McCoy refrained from pointing that out. Spock's fingers brushed his cheek and whether he did it deliberately or by accident – did Spock ever do anything by accident? – McCoy never knew. The contact only lasted a second. Then Spock was sliding an arm around his shoulders and lifting him. McCoy expected Spock to let go once he was sitting upright; to his great surprise, he did not.

"In answer to your question," Spock said when they were sitting shoulder to shoulder and thigh to bony thigh, "which may or may not have been rhetorical, it is my belief that we continue to get ourselves into these situations – as you put it – by simple virtue of being… us."

"That's your answer?" McCoy said wearily. "That's _it_? You've got a brain so incredible people actually try to steal it, and that's what you come up with?"

Spock regarded him placidly. "I could, of course, provide you with a detailed analysis of all our past actions, and how each one, in its way, increased our probability of 'getting into situations' such as the ones to which you refer. But these past few days have been difficult for you, and I would not tax you further with the mathematics."

"You're too kind, Spock."

"Indeed, Doctor. That has always been my assessment as well."

McCoy smiled. That hurt too, but not a lot. Maybe he was starting to thaw finally. Through the layers of his uniform, Spock's body was warm and solid. "Spock," he began. He would have said more, and maybe he would have leaned closer – they were already leaning quite close – but Jim interrupted them.

"Are you guys coming, or what?" he demanded, and McCoy was grateful for the darkness that hid his flushed cheeks and the fact that Spock still had an arm around him.

*

It really began again – as such things sometimes do – just a few months later, with a death and an open door.

"Well, Spock," said McCoy, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. "Didn't expect you to drop by." Despite his words, Spock detected no surprise in the doctor's rough tone. His eyes, Spock noted, were red-rimmed, and there was more gray in his hair. The creases in his skin were deep and dark, though that might have been due partly to the porch's wan light. He had aged since Khitomer. Spock did not doubt that most of that aging had occurred that very morning, or whenever he'd received word of the accident aboard the newly commissioned _Enterprise B_.

"If I recall," said Spock, "you extended an invitation once."

"Twenty-four years ago! You'll have to excuse me if I say I gave up waiting a long time ago."

"Did you?"

McCoy cast his gaze sideways and sighed. "No," he admitted after a long silence. "Anyway, I suppose I'm glad you're here. Suppose it's what Jim would've wanted. If he'd known."

"He knew," said Spock.

McCoy glanced up again, and now his surprise was obvious. "Oh? He never— Well, no, I guess he wouldn't've said anything. And I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Jim was no dope. Except maybe in choosing his friends. Damnit, we should've been there."

_And done what?_ Spock thought. _Prevented Jim Kirk from offering help where he saw it was needed?_ The words weighed heavily in his throat and would not come out. It was, he supposed, just as well. A few hollow words would do neither of them any good.

He was aware suddenly, of the doctor's intense gaze. He met it frankly, and for several long moments, they simply stood there looking at each other from either side of the threshold.

"You're grieving," McCoy said finally. "Aren't you?" It fell just short of an accusation.

"Among my people, the expression is 'I grieve with thee.'"

"Yours is prettier. Among mine it's 'I'm sorry for your loss.' Or 'I feel for you.' Damnit, Spock, how do you feel?"

"You know as well as I that it is not customary for a—"

"No," McCoy cut in, his blue eyes suddenly fierce. "Don't dance around it. This is Jim we're talking about. You feel gutted, don't you? Like a piece of you's been hacked off. Like someone's cutting off your air."

"Violent imagery," Spock observed, "for a man who is essentially a pacifist. You assign your own emotions to me?"

Breathing heavily, McCoy said, "I do. Just this once, I know I'm right. That's why you came here," he went on, without satisfaction or triumph. "Isn't it? After all these years. 'Cause I'm the only person in the universe with the balls to tell you how you _feel_. And to be right."

Spock hesitated. What he felt, if he was honest, and he supposed he had to be, was his two worlds tugging at him with equal insistency. Once, many years ago, Jim had likened him to a bridge, with his head on Vulcan and his feet on the Earth. Or an Earth-manufactured vessel, at any rate. He had not liked the simile, and said as much to Jim, who'd laughed. Now, he supposed, it was not wholly inaccurate. He could well imagine himself being stretched across a void.

"I _am_ right, aren't I?" McCoy's lips hitched to one side; it wasn't quite a smirk and it wasn't quite a smile. It made him look a little younger.

"So it would seem," Spock agreed. And abruptly he felt better: not quite himself, but less… taut.

"If you're trying to make it logical," said McCoy, "think about it this way: in the face of death, it's perfectly natural to do things that make you feel alive. Even if it scares you. Believe me, I know. I'm a doctor; I've seen my share."

"Nature and logic are hardly synonymous," said Spock. "However, it is not logical to fear that which is natural."

"Bullshit to that. But what're you saying?"

"I am saying that you were wrong before."

McCoy raised an eyebrow. "When before?"

The temptation to say _always_ was rather strong, but Spock suppressed it. It wasn't true, after all. "It does not matter. Tonight, you are partly correct. For once," he could not resist adding. "I am here because I believe it is what Jim would have wanted. It also happens to be what I want. And not merely for the purpose of sharing grief. It seems…" He paused, studying McCoy. He was not only grayer, but thinner. Sliver-thin, almost, as if the years had worn down everything but the spirit. A strong gust of wind could have blown him away. Spock remembered that night in the cave so many years ago, and once again experienced a strong, protective urge. This time, it might have had something to do with losing Jim, but that did not change the fact that he wanted, _desired_, to position himself between _this_ man and the night's cold dangers.

"It seems," he said again, "that I have missed you." And as he said it, the last of the tautness eased. He could think of no logical explanation; it was simply true. He had missed the puzzle this odd, thin man presented. He had missed other things about him as well.

Such as the way he somehow contrived to sound both smug and incredulous as he said, "Missed me? It's only been – what? A couple of months?"

"Precisely…" Another old, long-ignored and then forgotten whim came back to him. "… dear Doctor."

The blue eyes lit up. Spock could think of no other description. The grief was still there, deep and raw, but Spock sensed the undercurrent of hope. It was such an old emotion, but it burned steady despite all the years. "My dear Vulcan," McCoy said, unfolding his arms. Still, he did not move aside. He appeared to be waiting for something more.

Behind Spock, the night was deepening. He could almost feel the earth turning beneath him, the great wheel of the zodiac turning above. A breeze stirred the branches of the trees, the brass wind chimes that hung from the porch ceiling, and the short hairs that covered the nape of his neck. He heard an odd sound. It was like a shivery chirrup, and he was sure that it did not come from the throat of any bird.

"Crickets," said McCoy, answering his unspoken question. "Those're crickets."

"Ah," said Spock. "I suspected as much." Then, "May I come in?"

This time McCoy's whole mouth – indeed, his whole face – smiled. "Always," he said and held out his arms.

Spock stepped forward and completed the circle.

8/24/2009


End file.
